


Minutes Before The Carnage

by Eisenschrott



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Rape Fantasy, Umbara is a Spooky Place, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 13:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15244452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott
Summary: Captain Veers' first dangerous assignment on the frontlines after the death of his wife.





	Minutes Before The Carnage

The cockpit smells of metal and sweat, more comforting and familiar than the well-laundered sheets back home in the bedroom. Eyes fixed on the blast-lit banks of mist swirling beyond the viewport, Captain Veers wonders if he finds the smell comforting because he knows it to be  _feminine_  sweat.

It emanates from the new pilot, Sergeant Keldau. This mission is her baptism of fire, and it’s a death gamble. Poor bastard. Being Mandalorian to boot, she must have a hunch the battle is going to be a massacre; although she acts professional, her body sweats out the unspoken fear.

Veers stands behind her seat, a bit closer than it’s necessary, hands on his hips gripping onto his belt.  The skirt of his tunic covers the slight, snug bulge in his pants—hopefully. Not that he or Keldau care anyway, since they will be both dead in a few standard hours. His right thumb strokes the holster of his blaster.

The battlefield is beyond a steep ridge, the artillery lighting up the dark sky in short bursts of red and green. It’s an easy advance to there; the previous attacking regiment cleared the path, and the AT-AT is stepping on what’s left of them. You wouldn’t notice with the leg stabilizers and the cockpit’s basculating floor, but Veers can feel the difference from one step to the other, when they’re on plain ground and when the walker is crushing the debris of its predecessor underfoot.

“Distance from the deployment point?” he asks the pilot.

“Five… five point seven klicks, sir,” answers Keldau. Her helmeted head cants to watch the flight of three TIE fighters in formation passing overhead, so low the ion engines whine seeps through the cockpit’s armors. Just as they fly over the ridge, a white flak hits the fighter on the left of the formation: it crashes to the surface in a fireball.

Keldau continues in a flat voice, “ETA in ten standard minutes point three.” She makes a quiet noise through her helmet, maybe a deep breath.

“Good,” Veers just says. Since Eliana died, thinking of women in a sexual way sickens him, but now he forces himself to consider that ten minutes is long enough he could ask… he could  _order_  Keldau to take her helmet off and spring with him to the hold; he could lock himself up with her in the ‘fresher cubicle, unzip his trousers, shut his eyes, whisper Eliana’s name as he pulls the woman’s hair—

He staggers back a few steps, bending as his upper body rips itself to fiery shreds inside the cuirass. He grabs onto the edge of the comm console and coughs up his last meal on the floor at his feet. It’s liquid by now; the only chow has been protein slurp, digested as quickly as if you never ate anything.

He wishes he were already dead. In Eliana’s place. Or reunited with her. If he even deserves that—no, he doesn’t. Hence why he’s here, on this shithole of a planet where everything shoots or bites or crushes or cuts or eats you alive. All things at the same time, too. He can’t wait for it. That’s what he deserves.

“Captain?”

Veers pulls himself straight, wipes his mouth on his sleeve and turns to meet the quick glances the pilot and the gunner casts him over their shoulder.

They think better of asking if he’s fine.

A banshee flicks in front of the viewport, a flash of green eyes and saw-like slithering tail. Keldau curses in Mando’a, the walker’s guns come to life, Veers can’t see if the damn critter has been vaporized or flew away.

The comm comes online, audio only. “Ghost Two,” speaks up the major, “hold your fire until you are in position.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What if they send in airpower with actual guns,” Keldau mutters, “instead of the kriffing bugs?”

Thank the stars the major has already cut the comm.

“Are you afraid, Sergeant?” Veers says.

“No, sir. It’s just… Umbara’s bad luck, sir. We all heard the stories.”

“ _Heard_  the  _stories_.”

“Aye, sir. As in, not the official mission reports.”

Veers chuckles. Oh, he has heard those stories, too, from the mouth of folks who swore they had heard them from clone troopers who had been at the battle for the capital city. They might be  _true_  stories. That’s why he volunteered for this assignment. “So you are afraid.”

“…No, sir.”

Veers raises his voice. “Blasted akk dogs, do you want to live forever?”

“No, sir,” she and the gunner answer in unison, not meaning it.

“You aren’t going to. This planet,” Veers taps a boot on the metal floor, “will be our grave. We will lay down our lives for the Empire. For something worthier than all our sorry arses thrown together. A better galaxy for our children,” even if Zev won’t ever love his father again, no matter how much good Captain Veers does for the Empire, no matter how fervently Veers prays the boy will one day understand and forgive when he’s grown up, “for our homeworlds and everyone we hold dear. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” They mean this a bit more.

“Sir,” says Keldau, “we are in…” She trails off as the battlefield stretches down in their field of vision, at the foot of the ridge. It looks like a lava lake. Dark and afire at the same time. Tiny stormtroopers writhe in and out among the blood-red treetops. Imperial and Umbaran vehicles move like beasts in a fighting pit. “…position.”

The major speaks into the comm channel again, “Ghost Force, all units prepare to attack on my mark.” She breaks into a scream, then the comm buzzes off. The cockpit of Ghost Two shakes, the explosion outside very close and very audible.

“Crawler tank!” the commander of Ghost Three shouts into the comm.

Before Veers can bark any order, a cacophony of grinding metal and heavy blaster fire overwhelms the cockpit, which rocks so hard he has to grab onto the console with both hands and all his strength to not fall.

In the viewport he sees the head of the worm, a giant eye flooding the cockpit with its blue glow and the roar of guns, the blasts thudding on the walker’s armor.

“Keldau!”

“Sir!” Her voice is shrill.

“Stomp it!”

“What?”

“Stomp on the worm! Keep it still!”

The crawler tank squirms, its legs punch onto the viewport. Keldau and the gunner duck on the console by instinct at every blow, but they remain at their stations.

“Fire!” Veers screams.

The cockpit shudders. The crawler tank’s eye breaks under the red high-energy bolts of Ghost Two’s temple guns. Smoke and fire erupt from the crack, Veers sees a humanoid form in the pane for a split second, then the enemy craft collapses to fiery pieces out of sight. The transparisteel viewport has acquired a web of cracks, and the cockpit now stinks of scorched metal and vomit.

“It’s down!” cries the gunner.

“Crack shot, Moonburner!” echoes Keldau, while she struggles with the cloche to keep the walker upright.

“More will be coming. Keep your eyes sharp, you two!” says Veers. He turns to the comm station and addresses the attack group, “Ghost Force, Captain Veers of Ghost Two here.” The tactical display shows that Ghost One, Ghost Three and Ghost Four are down. “I assume temporary command of this mission. All the living proceed to attack.”

He realizes he’s grinning. For the time being, he cares more about killing than being killed.


End file.
